07 May 2016
Targeting U.S.
Nuclear Policy in Iran
Commentators on Roger Cohen’s OpEd in the 5/7/16 NYT (“U.S.
Policy Puts Iran Deal at Risk”) have focused on reducing Israel’s nuclear
arsenal and pressuring its governing regime to change its support for terrorist
or strategic Islamic activities. As long
as a religious organization, like the Revolutionary Guard Corps, governs a
regional powerhouse like Iran, U.S. and liberal democratic objectives in the
Middle East will be frustrated.
It is commonly said that American culture is widely admired by
Iranians. However, millennia of
repression in their society, ruled by autocrats since before Darius, have sensitized
opinion-leaders to choose acquiescence to strong-arm government as standard
behavior. This is bound to change
because of the information revolution brought on by the Internet. However, their willingness to resist
religious repression is not likely to strengthen any sooner than the corrupt
dominance of the Revolutionary Guard Corps would decay as a result of lifting
the U.S. trade embargo, as favored by Mr. Cohen. Moreover, a change in the Iranian government’s
international policies must happen first in order to make the end of the
embargo acceptable to a Republican-controlled Congress.
Are there enabling tools that the U.S. can provide to the
Iranian opposition? Or is it a matter of
convincing them that such resistance is likely to succeed? In any case, wouldn’t that subversive policy
undermine the nuclear agreement? The
large Iranian diaspora in the U.S. suggests the existence of a natural well of
liberal democratic sentiment on which an opposition movement could draw. Mobilizing that movement from a U.S. base
would be a more productive target for American policy than direct antagonism of
the Iranian governing regime.
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